1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to the sport of waterskiing, and is more particularly concerned with a device for winding and unwinding a tow-line such as is used for towing a waterskier. The device may be used in either its loaded or unloaded configuration, in the sense that the waterskier may be attached or unattached to the handle end of the tow-line.
2. Description of the related art
In waterskiing a tow-line is attached to the stern of a boat to pull the waterskier through the water. The tow-line is typically mounted to the stern by means of a conventional ski pin fastener mounted on the transom or rear deck, or may, in boats more specialized for waterskiing, be mounted on the upright free end of a ski-post mounted on the stern of the boat. Regardless of the specifics of mounting of the tow-line, it is always a serious problem, from both the safety and convenience standpoints, to keep the tow-line untangled and out of the way of the boat occupants. Moreover, serious drawbacks are associated with casting the tow-line into the water for use by the skier. For instance, the line often becomes entangled, hazardously requiring the skier to remain motionless in the water while untangling the line. Additionally, a line hanging into the water may become entangled in the boat propeller with possible damage to the boat and/or injury to the skier or boat operating personnel. Accordingly, the need for keeping a ski tow-line neatly stowed and for paying out the rope in a controlled, orderly manner has long been recognized by the boating community.
Various forms of reels or spools have been developed to store the tow-line and to allow its payout to the skier during use, as well as for retrieval of the tow-rope. Examples of such devices can be seen in the following prior art patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Patentee ______________________________________ 2,998,796 Wittrock 3,326,493 Bondesen et al 3,498,563 Palmieri 3,813,055 Pickrell 3,831,545 Cain ______________________________________
However, these and other known devices have all failed to obtain a level of acceptability among the boating community because of their common failure to address the major problems peculiar to their use. For example, because a sporting boat such as may be used in waterskiing is often used for other purposes, aesthetic considerations and safety precautions dictate that a tow-line winding or storage device be removed from its prominent normal operative location and be stored when waterskiing is not contemplated. In other words, a successful device must be quickly detachable from the boat without the use of hand tools. Moreover, the device must be compact, and, ideally, is buoyant to prevent its loss upon accidental dropping overboard. In contrast with the requirement to be lightweight and portable, the device must be robust in its construction, so as to be able to sustain the stress-loading associated with pulling one or more waterskiers behind the boat.
While prior art devices, for example, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,493, may exhibit the required degree of robustness, they are neither compact nor portable. Moreover, attachment of such prior art devices to the boat is permanent in nature and requires the use of hand tools. Moreover, the unnecessary complexity of prior devices such as shown in the 3,326,493 Patent makes the pricing thereof prohibitive to the majority of sport-skiers.
Other prior art devices having some degree of compactness and portability, such as shown in, for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,545, are, unfortunately, not sufficiently robust so as to sustain the stress-loading of an attached waterskier. As such they may only be used when the tow-line is unloaded, thus requiring the user to detach the tow-line from the spool after payout for attachment to a more rigid structure of the boat. This requirement for detachment of the tow-line largely defeats the convenience of using the device, thereby rendering it impractical to use.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide a device for winding and unwinding waterski tow-lines which device overcomes the drawbacks associated with the prior art by being compact, lightweight and simple to manufacture, while being robust in structure, so as to be able to withstand the forces imposed by one or more towed waterskiers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device which is quickly and easily detachable from the ski-boat for storage, once the tow-line has been retracted.
It is yet a further object of this invention to provide a tow-line winding and unwinding device which may be used with existing tow-line fittings commonly installed on ski-boats. In this manner, no modifications or additions are necessary to accommodate usage of the present invention with such existing hardware.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a winding and unwinding device for ski tow-lines which device does not require the use of hand tools for its installation.
Another object of the invention is to provide a pay-out and retrieval apparatus of the type described which has a gear drive facilitating manual operation thereof, the gear drive being disengagable to allow free-wheeling of the spool of the apparatus, so that weak drag forces exerted on the floating tow-line may cause spool rotation and pay-out of the tow-line through an opening in the housing of the device.